Running back Trey Brown entered Bowdoin as a freshman in the fall of 2012 eager to get onto the football field. He was planning on playing football and baseball, but his first love was always football. Brown was especially eager to play because his last season of high school football at Phillips Andover Academy ended way too abruptly. On his very first carry at Andover as a post-graduate student he tore his right ACL in a preseason scrimmage. The game meant nothing, and the injury knocked him out for the entire season and began an eight month rehabilitation. Despite the injury causing him to miss out on the chance to impress college coaches, Bowdoin recruited Brown to play running back.
Brown only heard about Bowdoin as a post-grad at Andover, a prep school that routinely sends kids to NESCAC schools. Brown went to high school in his hometown of Livingston, California, a small city two hours inland from the Bay Area. Far away from the traditional enclaves of East Coast recruiting, he didn’t register on the radars of NESCAC coaches, and it was a family friend who recommended he try the post-graduate year to boost his exposure. His story up to this point is far from unique. Many students take post-graduate years and end up at NESCAC schools. Brown was hoping to go to a a Division-II or NAIA school where he could get a scholarship, and he had never even heard of the NESCAC before coming to Andover. Tearing his ACL in the first half of a scrimmage erased those ideas of going to a big time football school. He became focused on finding a school that would be a good fit for both academics and athletics. His academic advisor at Andover was a Bowdoin graduate and was the first one to recommend Bowdoin to Brown.
Even though he barely played at Andover, the year at prep school was huge for Brown. He describes Andover as a small college, a rigorous and somewhat specialized place where he had to work harder than in high school. In Brown’s own words: “I don’t think I would have been able to excel here [Bowdoin] without Andover … the curriculum at Andover is hard so I was prepared for college.”
Without football at Andover, he spent the year concentrating on getting good enough grades to get into Bowdoin and making friends who came from places all over the world.
So that’s how Brown ended up in Brunwick, Maine, far away from the Central Valley of California. He was confident coming into his freshman year that he was healthy again. He went through all of the preseason and was primed for significant carries early on because of injuries to upperclassmen. Then it happened again.
On a first half carry, he tore his right ACL once again, ending his season and causing some soul searching.
“I was shook. Yeah I was ready to hang them up. I was ready to hang them up.”
Still wanting to feel a part of a community at a new school, Brown went to all of the football activities for a few weeks after his injury. “I went to the meetings for the first two or three weeks and then I couldn’t be around it,” Brown says. “I was acting like I was in the games but I was on the sidelines.” Even with the two ACL surgeries on the same knee, Brown decided to go through another rehabilitation process with the blessing of the Bowdoin training staff. He couldn’t picture himself not at least trying to play football if it was at all possible.
Although he was cleared to play at the beginning of his sophomore year, Brown did not feel completely healthy entering the season.
“I didn’t feel too confident to make hard cuts off of my [right knee] … I thought to myself, ‘I’m alright, I’m alright,’ but it was false confidence I think.”
Still, he made it through all of preseason camp again and entered the season as the primary backup. He played in four games and ran for 162 yards, including 73 in the third game against Tufts. It was his first time playing football in three years, but he never felt completely right. “It was forced, I tried to do too much.” He was overcompensating for his injury, and on his first carry against Hamilton in Week 4, a 16-yarder, he he felt his ACL tear again, this time in his left knee instead of his right one where the first two tears occurred.
The injury hit Brown extremely hard.
“I wasn’t depressed, but I was different. I was distraught.”
He once again thought about whether he could come back to play football. After both of his ACL injuries at Bowdoin, Brown leaned on a close group of friends who encouraged him to make the decision that he wanted. His roomates, who include players or former players like Greg Thompson ’16, Jibrail Coy ’16 (a player who himself has had to overcome two ACL injuries while at Bowdoin), and Skyler Lee ’16 encouraged Brown to come back if that’s what he wanted, even if the rehab would be long and difficult. Brown knows that he couldn’t have come back without them. He sees the football team as his family at Bowdoin.
His family at home, meanwhile, was much more ambivalent about him trying to continue playing football, arguing that he risked ending up in a wheelchair. His mom especially wanted him to stop playing, but Brown felt the risks are worth it payoff. He knows that studies have linked ACL injuries to arthritis, but he thinks at the end of the day “it’s all worth it.” This is a sentiment that you hear often from Division-III athletes. That all the time spent practicing and training for games that often go unnoticed is always ‘worth it.’ However, most athletes wouldn’t sing the same tune after three ACL tears. Brown does, and he’s started to formulate a plan for returning for his final year.
He worked last season for Bowdoin trainer Dan Davies, somebody with whom Brown has spent a lot of time. Last year he spent his time treating his own injuries, instead of being treated. Meanwhile, being around the football field all the time wasn’t always easy.
“There were times when I wanted to get on the field, but I knew I wasn’t ready. I still was thinking about playing all the time.”
The extra time off was necessary, and Brown was able to take solace in the fact that he would have that offseason to get ready for one last hurrah.
When last winter began, Brown was healthy for the first offseason ever at Bowdoin, and when I asked him what that was like, he just told me that it was “awesome” multiple times. He was in the weight room almost everyday, finally able to do everything with his teammates again. In the offseason, Brown met new coach JB Wells for the first time. The two quickly built a relationship as Wells leaned on the returning juniors who had not gone abroad. Then at the end of the spring semester in a somewhat unusual move, Wells made Brown and Matt Netto ’16 captains. The decision happened in part because all three elected captains were abroad that spring. Wells wanted to recognize Brown and Netto, two players who have been huge parts of the Bowdoin team in different ways. The moment struck Brown.
“I was in shock. I looked around to make sure it was true. It meant a lot to me.”
Despite not having played in 2014, Brown is a Bowdoin football captain.
So far this preseason, Brown has felt good and healthy as ever, but he knows he has to be more careful than ever. He is a physical, down-hill runner who takes a lot of hits, and even with all the advancements in surgery, he is more likely to tear his ACL now than ever before. Already he has been able to take and give some big hits. Wells will have to make sure not to overload the running back, but at the same time Wells is hoping that Brown can help starting running back Tyler Grant ’17 not get as worn down as last season.
For now, Brown isn’t too worried. He is happy to simply be back on the field, playing the sport that has given and taken so much from him. The journey to this point has been a long one, and he is grateful for where he is right now. The biggest lesson Brown has taken from this journey is simple.
“Perseverance is the big word for me, in every aspect: sports, academics, just life.”
When asked about his hopes and expectations for himself and the team this year, Brown paused and smiled.
“Just wait on it. That’s all I have to say.”
